PC Software

[CotoChris]

Need some help here from the clever PC Yd'ers.

Currently in Portugal there is an association of PC software companies with government support are allowed to check if your software is legal and up to date. If caught the fines are large and for a small business it would be highly disruptive. They are being very active sending letters to all businesses with clear warnings and forms to fill out.

Many of the software I have is legal but admit that the key ones such as Office, XP and Acrobat are not. Offcourse it should all be legal but the huge expense in this software is something I can ill afford.

In the next few weeks I plan to change this as my business can afford but have some questions that you may help:

1) Is it worth waiting for Windows Vista? When it arrives can I use Office 2003 or will there be a newer version? If I buy XP can one upgrade to Vista or is it a case of buying new all over again.

2) I Often hear of some of the 'free' or 'cheaper' programs. I am so used to using Office that my concern is with the old files being accesible and have the same funcionality. My gear is the compatability with other programs such as the Anti-virus, hmm MS flight simluators , I tunes, Suunto software, etch..

I'm roughly OK with computer knowledge but have a profesional bloke who works on this for me, I just want to have some advice before I approach him.

[StuartC]

there's a similar thing here in the UK - The Business Software Alliance.

They send out heavy handed letters and questionnaires.
In my line of business all of our GP sites are covered by enterprise agreements with the big software houses, but because they're a private contractor to the NHS they get these on occasions too.

Sounds like you need to play nice as these guys do have teeth.

Windows Vista is probably something you can forget about until Service Pack 1, which is typically when most people in business start to take a Windows OS seriously. Until then, you're acting as an unpaid beta tester for Microsoft....

Normally, a new operating system is backward compatible with applications designed for earlier versions, but there's often some esoteric bit of fancy integration that you might not get, but this is usually no big deal.

So, Office 2003 is very likely to be fine with Windows Vista. (Haven't checked myself so am being cautious in my assertion here)

If you buy Windows XP, you'll need to pay for Vista when the time comes - check out the new/upgrade pricing.

Free office products seem to be well regarded, but I haven't used any and will leave that for others to advise about.

Are you talking about a single PC environment or multiples?

[CotoChris]

Originally Posted by StuartC

Are you talking about a single PC environment or multiples?

Thanks for the reply. As perfect coming comes I received just a few minutes a registered letter with username and password for me to enter on their site. Lovely!

I have 3 computers in the office: 1 Server, 1 laptop and 1 desktop. I may kill the server if it's financially feasable. It's there simply as a back up.

I need to check out with the shop where I brought the material. The windows comes as standard in Portuguese and I requested to have it placed in English so that may invalidate any legalities.

What is the point of the service pact, what does it do? If I buy thesoftware shouldn't the updates be free or the service pack isn't updates?

[Marky Mark]

If you're asking for a low cost eqivalent to the items you mentioned then, I'm just now looking at Suse Linux 10.1 with Open Office instead of MS Office and Mozilla Firefox instead of Internet Explorer. I also use Firefox and Open Office with Windoze and am happy with them, I'm sure there will be a pdf creator. The beauty is it's all free.

[MattS]

Unless you have a critical business need for Vista I would forget about it until you replace your PC. Changing to Vista without upgrading your PC will only make things slower.

The majority of XP licenses outside Enterprise agreements are OEM and can not be upgraded or transferred from the PC they were supplied with.

You may want to have a look at Open Office. It is free and about 90% compatible with MS Office. File formats are about 95% compatible. Only a small minority actually use the features of MS Office that Open Office does not support. The applications look and feel almost exactly like MS Office so you don't need re-training. Oh and it saves to .PDF so you might be able to do without Acrobat.

There are an number of Acrobat replacements. Usually they take the form of a print driver which can be used from any application that prints. Acrobat and Distiller are very bloated. The add-ins they install into office applications are a regular source of trouble. Again very few people actually need the features and could get by with something like PDF995

Lincesing software does not need to be expensive. You just need to think a little about what you actually need.

Unfortunately the only realistic replacement for XP is Mac OS-X. Linux is still too user unfriendly for the desktop IMVHO.

[EdHornby]

I'd say that a copy of windows XP for your desktop and laptop are worth the money - don't bother with waiting for vista, XP will do all that you need and vista will be expensive, late and have bugs in it like all the other windows products

If it's that strict in protugal then I'd say the server can probably be 'decommisioned' as using an external hard drive as a backup device will probably give you the ability to store data offline

open office is good for an alternative to MS office
Zonelabs do a free firewall
AVG do a free antivirus and antispyware
Mozilla do a web browser (much better than IE) and also an email client called thunderbird - both free

[StuartC]

Originally Posted by CotoChris

What is the point of the service pact, what does it do? If I buy the software shouldn't the updates be free or the service pack isn't updates?

Hi Chris,

a Service Pack from Microsoft is a major update containing all the individual patches and bug fixes rolled up into a specific release package.

e.g. Windows XP Service Pack 2.

Service packs are free, but if you have an unlicenced version of Windows, then I'm not sure if it lets you collect this latest one or not.

Windows XP really only became something people were prepared to migrate to after Service Pack 1, since this fixed lots of issues identified by those who moved to it early.

It's for this reason that most of the advice you'll get about Vista will be to wait until either
a) you need it to run a particular application
b) it has had time to settle in and get software fixes etc.

[Ding Dang Doo]

Originally Posted by StuartC

Hi Chris,

a Service Pack from Microsoft is a major update containing all the individual patches and bug fixes rolled up into a specific release package.

e.g. Windows XP Service Pack 2.

Service packs are free, but if you have an unlicenced version of Windows, then I'm not sure if it lets you collect this latest one or not.

Windows XP really only became something people were prepared to migrate to after Service Pack 1, since this fixed lots of issues identified by those who moved to it early.

It's for this reason that most of the advice you'll get about Vista will be to wait until either
a) you need it to run a particular application
b) it has had time to settle in and get software fixes etc.

If you have an un licenced copy of Windows and you try download Service Pack 2, you get a nice little message from Mr Gates telling you that you have a dodgy copy of Windows. He then gives you the opportunity to buy a licenced copy of Windows for about £92... I've just done this, as for some reason, PC in question started to 'play up' after trying to to download SP2. Once the licenced software was loaded, the PC mysteriously started to work properly again...


Pete

[milldog]

I run a server with 2003 and terminal services all dummy computer have 98 on them

the few stand alone PC's have run Linux £2 per licence works as good if not better than XP

graham

[CotoChris]

I've just spoken to the store who set up my computers and software. It's not as bad as I feared - cost wise. XP is € 130 per computer and €217 for Office small business. The laptop if OK, the server can run on NT (which I have the license) without office. Will have all legit by end of week.